The book is somewhat one of the best I have ever read.The whole idea of books is the survival of one man.A castaway who was left with nothing but some food supplies and a tiger in a life boat made it towards the Mexican coast. But was he with a real tiger the whole time. Only he knows for sure. As pi patel our castaway says is the story with animals is interesting than one without them. it is a must read for all those who cherish what we have and we could actually feel that there is great deal of difference between what a man can actually do and what a man will do to keep himself alive for as long as possible. ( )

This book starts out painfully slow. I loved reading about Pi's family zoo and all the animals that became his friends, but it doesn't pick up much until about a third of the way into the book. After that point, I couldn't put it down.

Without spoiling much: Pi and his family eventually decide to move from India to Canada. They are low on funds, so they make the journey on a cargo ship. After a big storm rocks the ship, Pi is left to survive on his own in a small raft with some uncommon companions: animals from his father's zoo. The book tells his story of life on the raft and his struggles with his religious faith. The story jumps between a writer, who comes to Pi many years after the event, to hear a story that "will make hime believe in God," and Pi's first-person storytelling.

It's a very intriguing story, and I really liked the inclusion of his struggle with faith and religion. I've recommended this to countless friends, and they've all enjoyed it... after the first hundred pages or so. ( )

The story is engaging and the characters attractively zany. Piscine Molitor Patel (named after a family friend's favourite French swimming pool) grows up in Pondicherry, a French-speaking part of India, where his father runs the local zoo. Pi, Hindu-born, has a talent for faith and sees nothing wrong with being converted both to Islam and to Christianity. Pi and his brother understand animals intimately, but their father impresses on them the dangers of anthropomorphism: invade an animal's territory, and you will quickly find that nearly every creature is dangerous

Granted, it may not qualify as ''a story that will make you believe in God,'' as one character describes it. But it could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life -- although sticklers for literal realism, poor souls, will find much to carp at.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity — it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

Evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality.

Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food is low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured.

Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious.

It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while… [S]urely we are … permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation

We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man. In a general way we mean how our species' excessive predatoriness has made the entire planet our prey. More specifically, we have in mind the people who feed fishhooks to the otters, razors to the bears, apples with small nails in them to the elephants and hardware variations on the theme: ballpoint pens, paper clips, safety pins, rubber bands, combs, coffee spoons, horseshoes, pieces of broken glass, rings, brooches and other jewellery (and not just cheap plastic bangles: gold wedding bands, too), drinking straws, plastic cutlery, ping-pong balls, tennis balls and so on. The obituary of zoo animals that have died from being fed foreign bodies would include gorillas, bison, storks, rheas, ostriches, seals, sea lions, big cats, bears, camels, elephants, monkeys, and most every variety of deer, ruminant and songbird. Among zookeepers, Goliath's death is famous; he was a bull elephant seal, great big venerable beast to two tons, star of his European zoo, loved by all visitors. he died of internal bleeding after someone fed him a broken beer bottle.

My story started on a calendar day--July 2nd, 1977--and ended on a calendar day--February 14th, 1978--but in between there was no calendar. I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.

Last words

Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.

Wikipedia in English (2)

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship in the Pacific, one solitary lifeboat remains, carrying a hyena, a zebra, a female orangutan, a Bengal tiger, and a 16-year-old Indian boy named Pi. His story is a dazzling work of imagination that will delight and astound listeners in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling and a tale that will as one character puts it, make you believe in God. (from PPL catalog record)

Haiku summary

Boat on the oceanWas there really a tiger?We will never know.(mamajoan)

Life of Pi is the adult book selection for 2004. Life of Pi is a daring, redemptive tale of adventure and survival where the most unusual Pi manages to survive on a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker.